What do You Look For in a Coach?

Over the past couple of years I've been teaching chess and I've been thinking of expanding into the online market, and I wanted to know what you, as a potential pupils, wanted from an instructor. I've begun making lessons for various strengths of player, so I felt I should make sure I was on the right track. So even if you're not interested in lessons at the moment I would appreciate it if you could weigh in on a few issues:

1. In what areas do you want to improve?
2. What is your goal in terms of a rating?
3. Are there any openings you're particularly interested in?
4. What do you consider a reasonable rate?
5. How strong a teacher would you be interested in? How much Experience?
6. Do you prefer lessons over the phone, via IM or in person if possible?
7. What is your preferred pace?
   

For those who are interested, here's my chess resume:

• Peak ratings: Chess.com 2195. Playchess Server (Slow) 2100.
  
• Best Performances (OTB only): 2058 Grade 12 Provincial Championship. 2056 Paul Hake Memorial.
• Nova Scotia Grade 12 Representative to the National Championship in May.
  
• Have coached beginners over the past two years, and have tutored in Math and Physics.
  
• Very knowledgeable about endgames, dangerous and unorthodox openings, and more orthodox positional openings as well as chess culture and history.
• I have access to a dozen classic instructive texts and chess puzzle books.
  
• After May 20 I will be available at any time.
• I speak English and can get by in French.

I look for somebody who can tailor to the student's needs.  I am not interested in a coach at the moment, but I thought I would respond.  Coaches should not try to force the student to have a certain style of play or make them play certain openings.  Don't beat the student over the head.  I once had a coach who would grinch about one of my moves for about 15 minutes.  Be calm, laid back, and let the student decide what he wants to learn.  After all, he is paying you.  I think an acceptable rate for someone at your level is around 15-20 dollars per hour.

1- Everything, but tactics are what I need the most work on

2- 2000 USCF at some point in my life. Get to 1800 USCF by the time I graduate. Hopefully I can earn a floor of 2000.

3- I'm set on opening play until I hit 1800.

4- For an un-titled player, <$40 per hour.

5- My coach is an NM, and isn't all that far from making that title permanent.

6- In person is by far the best, with occasional emailed questions.

7- Thorough. I want to understand what is being taught fully. For example if you are doing rook endgames, give me more than Long side, short side, philidor's, lucenas. I can read about those. If I learn something, I want to know why it's true. Re-write my intuition.

I hired a national master to coach me ($20 an hour five years ago) and have provided private lessons ($20-$25) an hour to elementary school age players. I've taught hundreds of children how to play chess, and have coached teams to several city championships.

Individual instruction is best.

Endgames and tactics, tactics, tactics are far more important and useful than openings.

Offbeat openings retard and limit chess progress. Learn and teach classical principles and mainline openings when any time is spent on openings. Sure, I've played the Fried Fox (Hammerschlag) and the St. George Defense (and other weird and wild stuff) even in important rated games. My ability to play this junk with any success is wholly due to knowledge of endgames and tactics, and many many years spent playing the Queen's Gambit, the Slav, the Spanish, ...

I have a curriculum built around elementary endgame skills and tactical training. This curriculum is easily tailored to the needs of most players below 1500. Beyond that, careful analysis of games played is most often best.

The major advantage of a coach over a book, is that a coach can adapt the lessons, a book is concrete. If you couldn't understand, for example, how to use minority attacks, a coach could find dozens of examples, a book has only the few in its pages.

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but a coach is worth a million. If you have a coach it's like you've read every book they've ever read. If you want to know how to play the caro-kann and the Nimzo-Indian, you could go and buy two or three books, or you could ask your coach.

 A book can't identify what you are doing wrong. If all you needed to do was tell someone how to do an activity, then professional athletic coaches could send in video dvd's of their lesson plans to the team.

This is an interesting topic. One can learn the basics from books. i.e self taught. Which is what I have done. I play online about 1400 (slow). One frequently reads that tactics along with endgame basics are best until say 1500. Yet for an overall better game mistakes need to be understood from early on so development is in the right direction with a good foundation. Do tactics flow from position? Probably so among stronger players. Coaching from time to time would point me in the right direction, point out my weaknesses and help me to reach out towards expert OTB level. I like bobbereight's thought: rewrite my intuition.